155 comments:

If Michigan beats Minnesota today and beat MSU next Saturday and finishes 9-9 in the 2nd hardest RPI conference in the country and finishes in 5th place with that record depending upon what happens with PSU and MSU and plays Illinois on Friday, are they on the right side of the bubble? Do they have to win 2 Big Ten tourney games to get on the right side of the bubble if they finish in 5th place?

Baylor probably needs to hold serve against the 2 bad teams (Okie St and the first round of the B12 Tourny), and then get 1 win, or maaaaaybe 2, of the 3 games against the good teams, Texas/A+M/2nd round of the tourny. At the current rate, 1 will be enough, but if bubble teams start finding wins, that 2nd good win might be important.

I'm still convinced the selection committee will be generous to the mid-majors considering the expanded field and the weak bubble. Missouri State and Witchita State should both be in, whichever doesn't win the regular season title just needs to get to the title game of the MVC Tournament.

VCU had a chance at an at-large but not losing at home to James Madison they don't. Although I think that might open the door for Hofstra.

I still think there's a good chance 2 out of UTEP, UAB, Memphis, and USM get in.

Butler's getting an at-large, especially if they make it to the Horizon League final.

Heck, even Utah State could get an at-large at this point.

That being said, I still wonder about Gonzaga, if Alabama's RPI is too low to consider them, how come the Zags isn't too low?

The RPI is supposed to settle the SOS conflict when comparing records. Nothing else. There are humongous holes, the first of which are that BYU and SDSU are in the top 4 currently, when neither of them are top 10 teams in the country.

To will and the latest anoymous, and to everyone else for that matter, repeat after me.

Conferences do not receive bids, teams do. That basically means if there are only 3 teams from the ACC that deserve bids, so be it. The ONLY time conference afilliation comes into play(other than the Automatic qualifier) is when it comes time to fill out the bracket(even there the Big East rules apply).

I was not trying to infer on what will eventually happen(for the record, I see Duke, North Carolina, and Florida as getting in out of the ACC, with VA Tech, Boston College, Clemson and Maryland around the cut line), my point is that there is no language in the principles and procedures that states that bids are to be given out by conference, and not by team. As for when a team feels itself a lock to make the NCAA's, it depends on when a team has done enough to ensure that a long losing streak will not knock them out.

If VT, Maryland, Clemson and BC gt left out of the bracket, and all of these ridiculously bad teams with 13-14 losses like Michigan and PSU gt in, or these horrible teams from bad conferences get in, they should just shoot the committee members and start from scratch.

I feel like, as a country, we have all gotten RIDICULOUSLY snarky about the lower-level conferences. We can't stand to admit to ourselves that NCAA basketball is run by the six major conferences, because it's unfair that the 7th best ACC team would very likely beat George Mason on a neutral court. Or that Richmond is actually a terrible team with losses to Iona, Bucknell, and Georgia Tech.

On the Big Ten teams you mentioned, neither Penn State nor Michigan would be in my field if you I were to project out(they aren't in my current field either). Oh and with the win over Virginia, Boston College moved back in to my field at Wichita State's expense.

In a doomsday scenario where FSU loses to UNC, @NC State, and in their first game of the ACC Tourney (Quarterfinals vs. Maryland/Clemson/VT/BC), is there any way they could sneak into the play-in game?

What a performance by BYU today. They'll be at worst the top 2 seed on Monday and if Duke loses to Virginia Tech tonight, the Cougars could be on the 1 line. Texas would be an obvious candidate to move up as well.

If USC wins their final three games, they'll be in the mix, but they'll still need to do some serious damage in the Pac-10 tourney to get an at-large. The Trojans have four very nice wins on their resume (Texas, at Tennessee, UCLA, Arizona), but they have almost twice as many bad losses.

@Anonymous at 5:06pm -- I think Alabama is already out. Okay, so they eked out a win at home over Kentucky; they've also lost repeatedly to teams that aren't anywhere near the bubble (Providence, Okla St, Seton Hall, Arkansas, and -- most hilariously -- St. Peter's). They're just not a good team.

Put it this way: if Alabama were scheduled to play BC or Maryland tomorrow, on a neutral court, where would you put your money?

Interesting situation brewing in C-USA. Memphis was just destroyed by an overrated UTEP team. UAB has an interesting scenario that could turn their current 0-4 against 26-50 teams in RPI to a 3-1 within the next week and a half, making a strong at-large resume if they won't win the conference outright. If Memphis drops out of the top 50 (with today's loss), Marshall (currently 54th which UAB beat twice) wins 2 of the 3 remaining games against SMU (202nd), UTEP (78th), and UCF (68th), they could move into the top 50, and UAB beats Southern Miss (41st) Tuesday. This is the extreme best case, but does seem likely some of these will fall in place. Strongly think UAB will make the tournament with the way things are falling now.

Correction: Meant to say UAB plays So. Miss Wednesday, not Tuesday. And also that would be 3-2 with losses to Georgia and So. Miss, which Georgia could also possibly drop before then. Just alot of scenarios that does look to improve UAB's resume.

"I feel like, as a country, we have all gotten RIDICULOUSLY snarky about the lower-level conferences. We can't stand to admit to ourselves that NCAA basketball is run by the six major conferences, because it's unfair that the 7th best ACC team would very likely beat George Mason on a neutral court."

Colorado has 2 winnable games left @ISU and Nebraska at home. That gets them to 9-7 in Big 12 play with wins over Missouri, Texas, & fellow bubble team Kansas St. twice. With the way other bubble teams are playing their ways out (Baylor, Nebraska, VCU, Michigan, Minnesota, etc.), I wouldn't be surprised if Colorado found their way in the bracket

Arizona is way overrated they have beaten 0 ranked teams and their best win is at home by one point the only two good teams they played out of conference they lost to both of them not to mention they have a sub 200 rpi loss

Fair enough, anonymous, but losing to potential #1 seeds in the NCAA tournament on a neutral site is hardly a profile killer.

What is a profile killer? Being a bubble team and getting beat by the likes of Air Force (I'm talking to you, Colorado St.) or Iowa State (I'm talking to you, Nebraska), or James Madison (I'm talking to you, VCU). Way to make room for the teams that actually want to be there.

B101 -- Are you sure the BE is Pitt, ND, Syracuse? Right now St. John's looks pretty unstoppable. It sort of reminds me of the fantastic run the '03 Syracuse team (minus Melo, of course) in February and of course in the NCAAs. Once they got in the tourney, pretty much everyone was asking "why are these guys only a 3 seed?"

Michigan now has 5 true road victories @Clemson, Penn State, Michigan ST., Iowa and Minnesota. This is something the commitee seems to like. I wonder if the fluke 1 point loss to Wisconsin and the overtime loss to Kansas will get any consideration?

VT (if it beats Duke), or else Clemson (?), Missouri State (replacing Wichita State as the MVC autobid, perhaps?), Michigan, and whichever team out of Butler/Cleveland State/Wisconsin-Milwaukee doesn't get the autobid in the Horizon?

Maryland gets promoted to the top 8 out lists, and maybe USC gets added to the watch lists, especially if it can win a game on the Washington road trip next week. Colorado gets added to the watch list as well but still has plenty of work to do. Maybe reserve a spot on the bubble for the #2 Conference USA team, whichever one makes the finals but doesn't get the autobid (UAB, Southern Miss?).

Is it too late to just go back to only 64 teams? There will be some teams who shouldn't even be allowed to host an NIT game that are in the NCAA Tourney. And people wanted to expand to 96 or even 128????? Hopefully this year ends all that talk.

If UAB wins 1 out of their last 2, they will win at least a share of the CUSA title.

If they win both games, they win the CUSA title outright.

UAB is in the best position for an at-large out of all the CUSA teams. Memphis, despite having a couple wins over UAB, has a bad road record, several bad losses, low Sagarin rating, and may very well finish lower than UAB in the league ratings. And of course Memphis still has a tough road game at ECU which they could also lose. Not an easy road for them.

I know this sounds crazy but Villanova could easily end the season 9-9 (0-1) in the Big East and on a 5-game losing streak to end the year. Is there any chance they could either end up in the play-in game or god forbid the NIT?

Obviously they have some good wins, but when you get to play 12 top 50 teams with only 2 of those 12 games on the road, of course you're gonna have some good wins. You'd have to be pretty bad not to. With expected losses to ND and Pitt they'd be 6-8 vs. the top 50, with 2 bad losses to Rutgers and Providence. Call me crazy, but I could see Villanova sweating on Selection Sunday.

With Duke's loss at VaTech, what does this do to Purdue's outside chances for a 1 seed, I know people might laugh, but if Purdue wins out and Duke loses at UNC(which is not that shocking of an idea), and somehow loses the ACC tournament to them, that will mean that both will have 5 losses and Purdue will have presumably beat Ohio State once more and possibly Wisconsin once more.

That combination of things would likely push Purdue to a top 4 RPI, with the same number of losses, with similar numbers of top 50 RPI wins, would Duke still have the edge cuz they're Duke?

That's a pretty big IF, Shaudius. Why don't you guys beat MSU on the road today before you start asking about 1-seeds?

As for Duke, I'm no expert, but I tend to agree with you that Duke's resume is looking a lot less 1-seed worthy than a handful of other teams (possibly including Purdue). I think a Duke loss as UNC should remove them from 1-seed consideration (unless they win the ACC tourney, but even that won't be a spectacular feat this year).

They have all of 2 Top 25 wins (home vs. UNC and neutral court vs. KSU before Thanksgiving). Of Duke's other 4 T50 RPI wins, 3 were at home and one was neutral vs. #50 Butler. They've lost all 3 of their road games vs. T50 competition, and aside from surging St. John's (RPI #19) who whacked them at the Garden, the other two were against #44 and #48.

They beat Big East "bubble" team Marquette by 5 on a neutral court. Something tells me they'd have at least 4 more losses if they played in the Big East (and perhaps 2 more in the Big Ten).

Outside of Duke, Notre Dame still has a better resume than Purdue, and just as much shot as the Boilers at picking up a few more quality wins (Nova, @UConn, then 2-3 more Top20 RPI Big East opponents in the BET.

You've also got BYU, Texas, and SDSU still to deal with, along with presumptive 1-seeds Pitt, OSU, and Kansas.

Michigan will get some serious consideration tonight and will either be one of the last times in or out. If they can beat MSU this week it would likely mean a top 5 Big 10 finish and one Big 10 tourney win would be enough. The problem with Michigan's resume is that there are plenty of wins over bubble teams but no marquee wins.

I still don't trust BYU's defense enough to think they warrant a #1 seed. Jimmer Fredette is special, but if you saw the way they gave up uncontested layup after uncontested layup to UCLA and New Mexico you'd question it too.

By that same respect, Texas is doing everything it can to ensure that KU wins its umpteenth straight Big XII regular season title by literally losing to anyone. You just can't trust a Rick Barnes coached team, ever. If Baylor beats them at home they're not getting a #1.

Contrary to what Dick Vitale says, Virginia Tech is still no lock. The Duke win will get them into the bracket tomorrow, but if they don't go 2-0 next week, there's no guarantee that they're on the right side of the bubble heading into the ACC tourney.

It's going to take some pretty crazy results over the next two weeks for Purdue to get a 1 seed. They are 7th or 8th in line right now, and that's a lot of ground to make up with a couple of weeks to play.

I think VT is in, but they might want to make sure they don't finish 0-3.

As a Penn State grad, here's my take - if we somehow get to 10-8 in conference, we'll be in the discussion (just like 2 years ago). 9-9 isn't going to cut it considering how we did inside and conference play.

It's too bad, because much like the 2008 team, this current PSU team would give people fits and could be a legit sweet 16 outfit. Too many goofy losses and poor coaching did us in. If we had at least beaten Maine, or split with Michigan, or beaten an ACC team (we had 2 shots) who knows where we'd be now.

It was touched on before but I wanted to know just how legit are UAB's chances for an at-large bid? USM probably hurt themselves pretty bad with a loss to UCF but UAB's on top of the standings and have a Top 40 RPI. I don't think they'd win the C-USA Tournament because its @ UTEP and UAB is coached by Mike Davis, but a regular season title could be enough to get them in.

^ just like every team, what if Virginia Tech had beaten Georgia Tech, and Virginia tice, we would be looking at 14-2 in the ACC and a conference championchip. Oh and we were up 15 on UNC at half. If won that too we would be like a 5 seed and if we beat Purdue in overtime mabye a 3 or 4. We cannot live in the world of What ifs.

It's going to be fascinating to see what the committee does with Missouri State and UAB (assuming the Blazers win the C-USA regular season title) if either lose in their conference tourney final. Neither team, at the moment, has a Top 50 win, neither did anything OOC, but both will have RPIs around 40 when all is said and done. Will a regular season title in the 8th-best (C-USA) or 12th-best (MVC) league be enough for an at-large? In a year with three extra bids to give out and an awful bubble?

Our gut feeling is that neither would get an at-large. There are too many other big conference bubble teams in the mix that will have chances to pick up quality wins in their conference tournies. Missouri State and UAB won't have that luxury. Throw in another bid-stealer or two and we think the Bears and Blazers would be off to the NIT.

I think VT is likely on the right side for the time being. BC/Maryland I suppose should enter that group. Let's revise the game. Based on WHAT THEY HAVE DONE RIGHT NOW (no more Purdue fans saying "if we win our next 6 games and move up to a #2 RPI"), rank...:

1) If Kansas/Pitt/OSU are your top 3 teams, put the next 7 in order for who's waiting for the top few to slip: BYU, Duke, Texas, ND, Purdue, SDSU, Wiscy. Throw Syracuse/UNC in there if you so please.

2) Just BCS conference bubbles: MD, BC, VT, Colorado, Nebraska, Alabama, MSU, Penn St, Minnesota, USC. Rank them (on what they've done right now) on order they should be included.

Anonymous 3:57 do you really think USC has a better resume as of right now than Colorado Nebraska Minnesota Penn state and Michigan what with their 3 bottom 200 losses and 6 sub 100 losses they got swept by Oregon they kinda suck

But doesn't the fact he's coming back help discount these losses a little bit and place a bit more focus on their games with him? At least that's how I thought the committee treated similar circumstances

I'm trying to create a power ratings system for ranking teams, so I'd like some answers to these questions (fill in the blank)1) An SOS of 25 is as valuable as an RPI of _____2) A win over a team ranked RPI 1-50 is _____ times more valuable than a win over a team ranked RPI 51-100 3) A loss to a team ranked RPI 201-347 is _____ times worse than a loss to a team ranked RPI 1-504) A road neutral mark of 5-5 playing the #25 schedule is as good as a road neutral mark of 8-2 playing the #____ scheduleThanks!

I can't believe that some people are saying USC has a good chance at an at large, when was the last time someone lost To three sub 200 hundred schools with an rpi in the 80's and a 65th ranked SOS got an at large assuming they don't Win out and win the PAC 10 tourney they'll have at least 13 losses and unless a team with 13 losses has a top 25 SOS they shouldn't be looked at

Re: Gtown, Chris Wright and how the committee might evaluate, lots of teams have experienced losses while suffering key injuries this year. In ND's example, 2 of their 4 conference losses (@Marquette and @St. John's) took place with Carleton Scott (ND's 2nd most important player) out of the lineup. They also beat UConn without Scott.

I doubt anyone's going to soften their critique of these two ND losses because of that injury.

First of all I think everyone will agree that The big ten is quite a bit better than the PAC 10 with their one way overrated ranked team and you also seemed to neglect that USC has 6 sub 100 losses and Penn state has 1 6 and 1 is a big difference, so they have the same number of losses but Penn states strength of schedule is 60 rankings ahead of USC and their rpi is thirty points higher and Penn state has more top 100 wins it's really not even close who has the better resume

Well we can start with USC has a winning conference record and PSU does not (both in down years for their conferences).

LMFAO. The Big Ten, despite a few teams not living up to preseason billing, are still #2 in conference RPI. The Pac-10 is 7th. The Big Ten will have 3 teams end up with #4 seeds or higher in the tournament, the Pac-10 will be lucky to end up with 1.

USC's profile could end up being better than Penn State's, especially if PSU stumbles in their last 2 games. As of right now though, the committee would likely take a 15-12 team with a #6SOS as opposed to a 17-12 team with a #55SOS. Neither team is really anywhere near the bubble yet, though.

The Penn State - USC argument is pointless at this time because at this point neither team is in. However, I agree with a couple of the people above that rank USC higher than Penn State. Just my opinion and its funny how defensive this pro big10 board gets whenever someone doesnt pick their team. Cut the field back to 65 and end this non-sense.

How many team can have no chances. Apparently, Alabama, VCU, UTEP, Penn State, Minnesota, Clemson, Maryland, Memphis, Wichita State, USC and Nebraska all have no chance after what happened this weekend. You guys still know that we have to find enough for a 68 team field right?

B101, every year the committee says during the selection show that the conference tournaments don't play much of a factor in who is getting in because by the time they get going the committee has moved past who is getting in to dealing with seeding. The exception in my opinion would be the Missouri Valley since its tournament is a week early.

With that in mind, I can't help but feel like whatever quality wins the major conference bubble teams will get in their conference tournaments won't push them ahead of Missouri State or Wichita State.

"B101, every year the committee says during the selection show that the conference tournaments don't play much of a factor in who is getting in because by the time they get going the committee has moved past who is getting in to dealing with seeding. The exception in my opinion would be the Missouri Valley since its tournament is a week early."

Actually, this is not true. The first committee meeting to discuss teams is either the Friday or Saturday before Selection Sunday. The games that have limited impact are the title games of the big conferences that happen late Saturday into Sunday, unless there is a "bid stealer" in play. Most of Sunday is spent piecing together the bracket per the rules and regulations.

Part of the reason a few leagues moved their title games to Saturday is because they felt they were getting screwed by having a game while the selection committee was really wrapping things up.

An interesting case to watch this season could be everyone's favorite conference here (the Big Ten, of course ;) )... their conference title game is Sunday at 3:30. Potentially, there may be a team in that game (Michigan, PSU, Minnesota, perhaps even Illinois) that will be either on the edge of the bubble or playing their way in.

(I'm not including MSU in that group because odds are if they make the BT Title game, they will be safely in by that point.)

It makes me sick to say it, but Michigan is currently residing on the better side of the bubble, thanks to every team within 10 slots of the bubble losing badly this weekend.

Remember last year when Lunardi did his "if we had a 96 team field" gag and showed how UNC and Sister Mary of the Blind both were included in the 96 team field? This year feels every bit as bad, with 28 less teams. Can we trim this down to like 50 and just play it out from there?

Just what does RS Gold The state of illinois need to do to figure the another option on the industry? Even, these people and Minnesota are generally plummeting super challenging. Be wary a loss for you toBuy WOW GoldIowa/Michigan these days!

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